Offshore is quite a project driven sector in the sense that work at offshore fields drives much of the demand for offshore vessels. But offshore is also project driven in the sense that offshore output growth is linked to field project start-ups. And since 28% of global oil production is offshore, the aggregate of individual offshore start-ups can potentially have significant implications for wider energy market trends…

The Middle East Gulf, which laps the shores of several major OPEC countries, holds 32% of the world’s 60 largest offshore oil fields, some of which have been active for 60 years. But though it is a mature area, in 2018 it is still projected to account for 28% and 34% of global offshore oil and gas production, with output having been supported by a large number of expansion, EOR and redevelopment projects.

After an extremely challenging 2016, parts of the offshore sector had a less harrowing year in 2017. Oil prices, though volatile, trended upwards, offshore project sanctioning picked up and there was a sense that perhaps some charter markets were starting to bottom out. That being said, it was still another very challenging year for the offshore fleet and owners will certainly be looking for improvements in 2018.

Since the onset of the downturn in 2014 it has been a pretty bleak few years for the offshore sector, with the occasional chinks of light on the horizon often quickly clouded over. More recently there have been indications that things might be clearing up a little and so sentiment has improved somewhat. But it is worth recalling just how low the barometer has sunk in order to put these things in perspective.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and is one of the founding members of OPEC. Despite this, their 2.5m bpd of oil production accounts for only 3% of global output. Venezuelan oil production declined over the last decade owing to complex geology and a difficult investment climate. However, several large IOC-operated gas fields offshore Venezuela could now offer some positivity.

The Hydrocarbon El Dorado

Venezuela’s 300bn bbl of oil reserves account for 18% of current global reserves. But 220bn bbls of these reserves are onshore in the Faja, or Orinoco heavy oil belt, which has produced around 1.3m bpd in recent years. Venezuelan heavy oil grades are a key part of world oil supply: many US refineries were designed to take its heavy grades of oil together with lighter Arab crudes, meaning the country is also important for the tanker market. But production from the Faja is expensive and technically challenging, and heavy crudes sell at a discount.

Making Heavy Work Of It

After the election of Hugo Chávez in 1999, Venezuela’s oil industry came under strain as social policies were funded by oil revenues, and reinvestment declined. After the 2003 general strike, 19,000 PDVSA employees were fired and replaced with government loyalists. Furthermore, in 2007, the government looked to capitalize on the high oil price environment by nationalizing international oil companies’ (IOCs’) assets.

Offshore production was always the minor fraction of Venezuela’s output (23%). However, lack of investment in maintenance hit it hard. This was particularly true of the very shallow water production in Lake Maracaibo, which has seen drilling for more than a century. Issues of pipeline leakage and even oil piracy on the lake helped production there decline. In total, output from the Maracaibo-Falcon basin (not exclusively offshore) fell 35% between 2008 and 2015. In total, offshore production is estimated to have dropped by about 38% to 0.57m bpd.

A Brighter And Lighter Future

The current political and fiscal situation in Venezuela offers little suggestion that it will be easy to arrest decline. However, a more permissive attitude to foreign investment may help. In October, agreements were signed to allow Chinese and Bulgarian investment to fund repairs offshore Lake Maracaibo. Perhaps more significant is the promise of gas, where greater IOC participation is permitted.

Trinidad, Venezuela’s very close neighbour, tripled their offshore production from 1998-2005. Venezuela has begun to make moves in the same direction, firstly via the Cardon IV project. The first field here, Perla, started up in 2015 run by an Eni-Repsol joint venture. As the graph shows, this has already had a small, but visible effect on Venezuelan gas output. Perla has reserves of 2.85bn boe and by Phase 3 is set to be producing 1.2 bcfd. This is likely to be added to from 2019 by up to 1 bcfd of output from the long-delayed Mariscal Sucre fields.

So, Venezuela has vast reserves but production has been falling. The political situation, combined with low oil prices, is likely to hinder any rapid turnaround in oil output. However, although progress has been slow, IOC involvement has at least provided some positive impetus for gas production offshore Venezuela.

China’s rapid economic growth over the last two decades has seen the country’s annual primary energy demand more than triple. Coal aside, the other key fuels powering China’s developing economy have been oil and gas. And while commodity imports have risen, economic growth has also incentivised more E&P activity in China itself. So how are things looking for China’s upstream sector, particularly offshore?

Venerable Ancestry

As of start May 2017, a total of 319 fields had been discovered offshore China (with 163 of these having been brought into production at some point) and around 5% of the active offshore fleet (over 500 units) was deployed in the country. Moreover, in 2017, 15% of total projected Chinese oil and gas production (4.43m boed) is forecast to be produced offshore.

Of course, things were not always thus. While oil extraction in China is thought to date back to antiquity, the modern industry took off during the era of Mao Zedong, in the 1950s and 1960s, with the exploitation of fields in the onshore Songliao Basin, notably the Daqing Complex, by the state. Offshore E&P was minimal before the late 1980s. As was the case in many countries, Chinese offshore oil production began at shallow water fields, in China’s case located in the Bohai Bay, Pearl River Delta and Beibu Gulf areas, which still account for 43%, 32% and 12% of the fields now active off China. A total of 139 offshore fields are in production across these three areas, of which 76% are exploited via fixed platforms. Shallow water E&P heavily influenced the development of the offshore fleet in the country: for instance, 11% of the active global jack-up fleet is deployed off China.

The Deepwater Leap Forwards

In recent years though, the drive to raise production has seen Chinese E&P shift into deeper waters, in mature areas as well as frontiers in the East China Sea, the Yinggeh Basin and the South China Sea. That being said, just 13 fields in depths of at least 500m have been found to date (the first in 2006), of which only two are active: Liwan 3-1 and Liuhua 34-2, both in the Pearl River Delta. Hence demand for high-spec floaters, MOPUs and OSVs remains limited. Deepwater E&P in China was led by IOCs, but then CNOOC began concerted independent efforts. However, this process has been slowed by the oil price downturn, which prompted the NOC to put deeper water projects such as Lingshui 17-2/22-1 and Liuhua 11-1 Surround on the backburner.

Conquering The Seas?

The outlook for Chinese offshore projects seems to have improved since the OPEC deal though, and CNOOC is reportedly planning over 120 offshore exploration wells in the next five years. But there are contrary factors, not least of which is political risk in the East and South China Seas, where China and neighbours such as Japan and Vietnam are engaged in bitter border disputes, notably over the “nine dash line”. Moreover, government plans to increase onshore shale gas output at Fuling and elsewhere may divert investment from costly offshore projects.

So there are clearly risks to continuing E&P off China in more frontier areas. But even as the country’s economy matures, energy demand growth is likely to remain substantial. The fundamentals thus suggest that the onwards march of E&P off China is likely to be far from over yet.

In the years since 1959, 7,367 offshore fields have been discovered globally, with 4,173 of these having been brought onstream (3,062 are still active). The average water depth of discoveries and start-ups is now far deeper than a few decades ago. But contrary to what might be expected, this appears to be not the result of gradual trends in E&P activity. Instead, deepwater activity has surged in distinct waves…

Shallow Water Drift

Offshore E&P activity began, quite naturally, in shallow waters close to shore, as a logical progression from exploiting onshore oil and gas fields in locations such as Texas and Saudi Arabia. This also reflected technological barriers: the capability did not exist to exploit deepwater fields. So from 1960 to 1996, the annual average water depth of offshore discoveries and start-ups was 94m and 59m respectively. Depths did drift slightly deeper from 1960 to 1996 as for example North Sea E&P activity moved from the Southern to the Central North Sea. But even in 1996, the mean offshore discovery water depth was just 212m. The first ever deepwater discovery was the MC 113 field in the US GoM in 1976 but this was atypical: just 4% of 3,062 offshore fields found from 1976 to 1996 were in such depths.

Deepwater Heave

The first wave of sustained deepwater E&P ran from about 1997 to 2006. It was heralded by the 1997 Neptune start-up in the US GoM in a water depth of 568m. This was the first ever Spar development and showed that US deepwater fields could be economically exploited, contributing to a rush of deepwater E&P in the GoM against a backdrop of faltering US onshore oil production growth and gradually rising oil prices. Some 440 fields in depths of at least 500m were found from 1996 to 2007; 38% of these were in the US GoM. This period also saw the internationalisation of the offshore sector, with oil companies making deepwater finds in areas like West Africa, which accounted for 26% of the 440 discoveries. Here the key enablers were subsea trees, which helped reduce field breakevens to viable levels. All told, the average depth of offshore finds from 1997 to 2006 was 402m.

Ultra-Deepwater Upsurge

A second wave of deepwater E&P has been ongoing since about 2007. Oil companies have pushed into ultra-deepwater frontiers, notably in the Santos Basin off Brazil, helped by advances in pre-salt seismic imaging, but also in the KG Basin off India, off East Africa and off countries such as Guyana or Senegal. Since 2006, with oil prices generally high, there have been 392 finds in water depths of at least 1,500m (67% of such discoveries made to date). The average water depth of discoveries in this period so far is 628m.

Ebb And Flow?

However, offshore start-ups have lagged in terms of water depth. Since 2006, the average depth of 1,032 start-ups has been just 326m (with large variance from the mean). Several factors are at play but key are high breakeven oil prices at frontier projects (especially in the downturn) inhibiting FIDs, and political risk factors.

So given current offshore markets and long term trends in start-up water depths, a tsunami of deepwater start-ups looks unlikely at present. That being said, field discovery water depths – lifted on tides of regionalised E&P activity and new technologies – have clearly risen in waves.